Highest Paying Engineering Jobs

The Singapore government once strongly encouraged students to study engineering as they deemed it to be the next ‘hot’ career. This was about 10 years ago. With the rise of the financial sector, more and more students are flocking towards the financial sector. However, this is not to say that engineering jobs have no good prospects. Engineering students who graduate from top universities all around the world are still highly sought after with the promise of a bright career in MNC’s and IT companies.

In order to be working as an engineer, one will need to have at least a Bachelor of Science degree from an accredited college. However some employers will require a master’s degree or even a doctorate depending upon the nature of the job. If an engineer wishes to work in the public domain, however, in that case he will need to pass a licensure examination that will allow him to practice.

Which engineers earn the highest amount of salary among all the categories? The following list will give an insight into the six best salaries earners among all the categories of engineer’s right from entry level to the senior engineers. The salary details ate taken from a salary review in the USA.

Aerospace Engineer, Level V

Median Salary: $119,292
Typical Requirements: A minimum requirement is a bachelor’s degree in aerospace or any other ancillary engineering discipline. An experience level of eight years or more is also required.

Of all the engineering and other jobs that are on offer, aerospace engineering is one which is one that actually requires the maximum amount of technical and engineering knowledge base. It is a job that encapsulates working experience with teams handling design and development of space ships, aircrafts, and missiles etc. one can get the exposure of working on propulsion, avionics, aerodynamic and material science and deal with the actual building of rockets. An aerospace engineer having years of experience and working in a senior position is entrusted with the ultimate responsibility of the success or failure of an entire mission, project either civilian or in the military domain.

Engineering Manager

Median Salary: $115,036
Typical Requirements: A bachelor’s degree in engineering is required together with a minimum eight years’ experience.

As an engineer himself, he can understand and manage other engineers better. This is one of the prime reasons why in most organizations, engineers are being appointed in the role of engineering managers. Understanding the talents of each engineer in the team and then assigning him the tasks would come to him naturally as a result. Engineering managers are charged with the management and oversee of major civilian and military projects where they supervise design specifications, managing human resource allocation, allocation of budget, supervising and okaying performance and also other tasks. An engineering manager will be needed to have experience in the areas of activities that the company deals in and also knowledge in business management. Alternatively an engineering director is one who will manage thousands of staff engineers and be responsible for their works.

Materials Engineer, Level III

Median Salary: $81,871
Typical Requirements: A Materials Engineer needs to have a bachelor’s degree in engineering with four to six years’ of experience in the relevant field.

Materials engineers are the ones who are technically proficient and experienced to make things cheaper and better. Materials engineers are the ones responsible for creating stuff as diverse such as a bullet proof vest or even a smart glue that sticks exactly where it is supposed to. Materials engineers are the people who decide whether existing materials can be used for the work in hand or they need to design and develop something absolutely new. Materials engineers are specialized in a particular material say ceramics, plastics or even steel. They devise ways so that a material which was hitherto never used in a particular situation can be done so. One of the most challenging and useful sub species of materials engineering is biomedical materials which has a tremendous potential in the future.

Petroleum Drilling Engineer, Level I

Median Salary: $76,747
Typical Requirements: A petroleum drilling engineer needs a bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering, but engineers who are qualified in chemical, civil or mechanical engineering may also apply for a position.

The world over, produces of oil and natural gas are always looking for petroleum engineers who can design and implement drilling systems that can extract the maximum among of oil and gas from the Earth. Drilling engineers are always involving the latest in drilling technologies and ensuring that they can meet these requirements along with the stringent worker safety and other regulations governing the protection of the environment. However no matter how eager the mind of a newly appointed drilling engineer is, he is more likely to find himself in charge of a drilling job then entrusted with finding a ground breaking way to extract more oil and gas. Nevertheless he will find himself in a challenging position from day 1. The question here is what will happen when the world has passed the peak oil production? We can only assume that the job of a petroleum engineer will become a lot more demanding at that time.

Chemical Engineer, Level II

Median Salary: $74,480
Typical Requirements: Would need a bachelor’s degree, ideally in chemical engineering, along with three to five years of experience.

If you think that a chemical engineer is an alchemist then you are probably wrong. However at times they do appear to have created magic. Chemical engineers are mainly process designers and their task is to design and develop better and more functional products using the raw materials which are extremely cheap and then transforming them using every conceivable technology starting from oxidation reactions to using nanotechnology. Chemical engineers are responsible for creating better molecular structure which is stronger and more useful, creating in the process anything from ultra strong fibers to materials required for making prosthetics. A chemical engineer having some experience will be required to undertake projects with a degree of freedom while collaborating with skilled professionals from other technical fields.

Nuclear energy has a tremendous potential to do both good and harm and the world id is aware of its capabilities in both these areas. Nuclear engineering is a complex field requiring highly professional qualifications. A nuclear plant is investment magnets which requires billions of dollars in creating the entire infrastructure and then maintain and run it to produce energy. Engineers working in the plant are responsible for the design, testing and supervision of the various processes inside the plant. They also oversee the process when a plant is decommissioned and its spent fuel is transported and then stored in secure facilities for thousands of years. Nuclear fuel is also used in the military submarines and also in spacecrafts and nuclear medicine is a growing subfield of medicines. A simple warning to close: nuclear power is one of the most highly debatable sources of energy and one which is always under the whim of political and social pressures. The jobs that are created are thus always under the whim of changes in these scenes.